by Sharp, Tracy
The vigil. I forgot. Someone had mentioned it to me but I couldn’t remember who it was. “Shoot. I forgot all about it. Is it still going on?”
“Yes. It’s at the school, at the edge of the woods. We’re holding a prayer service. Are you coming? I was getting worried about you.”
I didn’t tell her that Mick and I saw her drive up in her car.
“Do you have your car, Delia?” I asked her, my nerves jumping.
“No. It was stolen. Can you believe it? Of all things. Some people are just plain evil. Taking advantage of such a horrible situation to steal a car!”
I let out a long breath. “Okay, we’ll be there in a few minutes.”
“Okay. Oh, Sheriff Will is just walking up. I think he has news about my car. I’ll talk to you when you get here.”
“Okay Delia.” I ended the call. “That was strange.”
“What?” Mick asked me.
“Delia said that she never went to the house looking for me. She said that her car was stolen.”
“What?” His brows furrowed. “You’re kidding.”
“You have to admit, that was not Delia.”
“Then who the hell was it?” he said.
Chapter Nine
As we drove into the parking lot of the school, I was amazed at the crowd. I could hear low singing, and there was a steady stream of people dropping flowers in front of blown-up school photographs of Eliza and Kerry.
A chill ran down my spine, as for a moment, I imagined my picture there, too.
I didn’t know who was next on the abductor’s list, but as we walked solemnly to the vigil, my gaze hesitated as it passed over each young girl that went to the school.
Any one of us could be next. Eliza and Kerry were as different from each other as different could be. There didn’t seem to be any pattern except that they both were about the same age.
An enormous plastic bowl was filled with carnations of all colors. The carnations came from both the flower shops in our town. The owners and workers of both shops were there, refilling the bowl with more carnations as the supply went down. I chose a couple of pink carnations, and made my way through the crowd to place one carefully on the ever-growing piles in front of each girl’s photograph.
My throat tightened as I looked from one to the other. How could this be happening? Girls vanishing—seemingly before our eyes. We couldn’t let this continue. Somebody had to do something.
I had the ability to do something, and at that moment, it seemed so wrong not to use it, even if I were putting myself at risk.
I bent my head, closed my eyes, reached out my psychic fingers, and began sifting through secrets, opening my mind and clearing it of anything except hearing secrets.
Blocking all sound, I listened with all my might.
I learned that old Mrs. Lisky was happy that her husband had died of an aneurysm last spring. I didn’t probe as to why. The reason was not important. But I did sense a fading fear and enormous relief, and finally a sense of peace, all tangling with one another in her heart.
Moving away from her, I listened harder, imagining myself moving through the crowd. The word whiskey came through, loud and clear, from Mrs. Abrams, my ninth-grade English teacher. She had a drinking problem that nobody knew about, and kept bottles in her desk, her car, and all over her house. The stress of the missing girls was making her problem worse. I heard a flash of a name—Angie—and knew that she’d lost a daughter in infancy as a result of crib death. It was something she couldn’t move past, and I could understand why. I didn’t think I’d be able to either, in the same situation.
Brianna Hawthorne, a quiet, sweet girl, was forced to have an abortion by her parents last month. I frowned. She hadn’t been dating anyone from our school that I knew about. Perhaps it was a boy from a different school.
She’d been absent from school for a couple of days. Now I knew why. She secretly wished that she’d be abducted and killed. The guilt over becoming pregnant, and then ending the pregnancy, was terrible for her. I felt sad for her, and promised myself that I’d try to get to know her better.
I felt longing and lust coming from someone. I saw Eliza’s face flash through my mind, and reached, reached… I turned, looking at faces in the crowd. I searched for the pair of eyes that gazed at Eliza’s picture with a look different from the others.
And I caught Mr. Tanner’s gaze just as he felt my eyes on him. He looked at me and seemed momentarily startled.
I lifted my hand and offered a small wave, not knowing what else to do.
He gave me a little smile and waved back, and then turned and began walking out to the parking lot.
I moved out of the crowd and watched him walk to his car, probing. But he’d blocked me. Somehow, as if he’d known I were snooping, he’d cut me off from his thoughts.
Or he’d gotten scared and deliberately began thinking of something else.
I wasn’t getting anything more from him, even as I watched his car drive out of the lot and onto the street, past the cemetery.
***
“What did you find out?” Mick asked me.
People were leaving the vigil, somber and speaking in quiet tones. I spotted Delia accepting a hug from Mrs. Tanner, who often hired Delia to plan parties for her. Mr. and Mrs. Tanner lived in one of the gorgeous houses on the hill. Delia had planned their wedding years ago, and she’d planned every party for her since, which included all of the holidays. Mrs. Tanner came from old money, and so the wedding had been extravagant.
I watched them for a moment, marveling at how beautiful she was. She was in her mid-twenties, I guess, and her thick, shoulder-length auburn hair fell in shiny waves around her shoulders. She had gorgeous tawny skin and almond eyes, and could easily smoke any girl in our school in terms of beauty. Even the missing Eliza.
I got a flash from Mrs. Tanner that her husband desperately wanted children, but that she did not, yet, and had secretly had a birth control device inserted in her uterus even before they were married.
Not wanting to know any other secrets, I threw my mental block up and shook my head. I really didn’t want to know all this stuff. I just wanted to know who was abducting young girls in our town.
“Lore?” Mick said, watching me with his large, golden green eyes.
“Sorry.” I didn’t want to tell him about Brianna, or Mrs. Abrams’ drinking problem. I hesitated to tell him about Mr. Tanner’s inappropriate feelings for Eliza. But then, it might be important. “There was one thing that might be significant. About Mr. Tanner.”
Mick raised his eyebrows at me. “What’s that?”
“He…desires her,” I said, glancing up at him and then down at the ground. For some reason, I found it a little embarrassing to tell him.
“Sexually, you mean?” he asked me.
I nodded. “That’s exactly what I mean. All I got was that he is infatuated with her. He secretly is madly in lust with her. I don’t know whether it’s love, but it’s definitely lust.”
“Wow,” Mick said. “That’s interesting.”
I nodded. “He’s obsessed. She’s all he thinks about.”
“Lorelei!”
Mick and I both turned to see Delia walking quickly toward us. This was most certainly not the same Delia that had come to the house looking for me. Her voice was back to normal, and she moved the way she always did. “Delia.”
“I’m so glad you’re here. We need to go.”
I felt my brow furrow. “Go where?”
“Oh, the police want you down at the station,” she said, slipping a hand around my arm.
“They do?” I looked at Mick.
“Yes, they do. Sheriff Malloy thinks that you may know who took my car, because you were home when that person came looking for you at the house. If they were looking for you, they are probably dangerous, Lorelei. We can’t take chances. Did you get a good look at them? They were driving my car, isn’t that right?” She looked into my face, her expression open and warm.
>
“I saw the car. I didn’t see who was driving it.”
She turned to Mick. “Did you get a really good look at the person looking for Lorelei?”
Mick stared at her for a moment, and then shook his head. “No, ma’am. I didn’t. It was dark and the front light was off. I put a new bulb in it for you.”
“Thank you, Mick. That was very thoughtful.” She frowned. “Well, I think it’s very strange. Lorelei, you know why I’m so concerned about this.”
I nodded. The strange thing was, if it were the people who steal people for their talents, the police wouldn’t be able to do a thing about it.
Not regular, non-supernatural police, that is.
I wondered whether there were police for the supernatural world. There had to be, right? It would stand to reason.
“I’m sure it won’t take long. I would really like to know who stole my car,” Delia said. “And who is after you.”
I looked at Mick, who stared at me, face concerned.
“I’ll come with you,” Mick said. “I’m the one who saw the most.”
Delia hesitated, and then said, “Why don’t you follow us in your car? I have a Valentine wedding to plan and have a meeting with the bride right after we’re finished at the station.”
Mick nodded. “Yeah. Okay.” He looked at me, obviously feeling better about the situation. “I’ll be right behind you.”
“Sure.” I frowned. A wedding to plan? Today? Odd, considering what was going on in our town right then.
Delia and I headed to her car while Mick headed to his, which was across the parking lot. Although Delia seemed perfectly fine to me, I was still nervous about her. If it had actually been Delia at the house, acting like something out of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, it was possible that she could turn into that again.
Then again, maybe it wasn’t her, and the Delia thing was still out there, waiting and watching.
The thought sent a shiver through me.
I’d have to ask Wentworth whether he’d seen Delia lately. I looked around at the faces leaving the vigil. Wentworth wasn’t among them. Come to think of it, I hadn’t seen hide nor hair of him since Halloween night. I hoped he was okay.
“Have you seen Wentworth?” I asked Delia. “I thought he’d be here, at the vigil.”
Delia paused and looked at me as if she didn’t know who I was talking about.
She looked back at the car and climbed in as if I hadn’t asked her anything at all. She fastened her seat belt. I did the same, wariness moving over me.
What the hell was up with her?
Delia’s oldies station was playing a boppy tune that I normally liked. She tapped her fingers on the steering wheel and sang along, and I tried not to frown at her. Though it was an improvement since the last time I’d seen her, she was still definitely acting oddly. Given that we were just at a prayer vigil for two missing teenage girls, she seemed awfully cheerful.
A growing sense of dread crept over me, and I decided that I wasn’t getting back into the car with Delia after Mick and I answered questions at the police station. I was getting antsy to get out of the car, and when Delia turned onto Maple Street, where the police station sat on the corner, I felt relief wash over me.
But it was short lived.
The smell of Delia’s perfume was overwhelming, and beneath it, the smell of rotting flesh drifted toward me in the close quarters of the car.
I gagged as Delia pressed on the gas pedal and sailed right past the police station.
I coughed, stared at her, feeling my mouth drop open. “Where are you going?”
“Don’t worry about it,” Delia croaked.
The same voice I’d heard at the house, when she’d come looking for me, came from the person—the thing—next to me.
I unbuckled my seat belt and put my hand on the door handle, determined to jump out of the car whether it was speeding or not, when I felt something cover my mouth.
Instinctively I gasped, taking in a deep breath. The car swerved and, as my head clouded, I heard a horn blasting behind us.
Mick, I thought.
Then I went out like a light.
Chapter Ten
Before I opened my eyes I was aware of a strong cleanser smell, and beneath that, the smell of mildew. I could tell it was dark as there was no light filtering through my eyelids. My stomach was queasy. Then I remembered the rag with the strong-smelling substance that Delia had pressed up against my nose and mouth.
I opened my eyes and gagged. The nausea was horrible. When I saw my surroundings, fear made my stomach clench and I gagged again.
I was in a dark room, lying on a bed on top of a scratchy blanket. I could barely make out some kind of metal door with a small square window in it. Carefully, I swung my legs off the bed and made it to the door without throwing up, but had to steady myself with one hand on the cool metal. I leaned over and took several deep breaths, and then ventured a peek through the window.
The hallway beyond my door had several other doors. I moved to one side of the window and tried to see farther down the corridor. It seemed never-ending—just a long stretch of hallway with closed doors. I wondered how many other rooms like this one were behind those doors. How many other people were held captive?
I strained my ears, but heard nothing.
I closed my eyes and sent out my psychic fingers, feeling around, probing.
A flash of money changing hands. Of someone coming down a set of stairs, of a key opening a lock in one of the steel doors. I heard someone crying out. Felt an electric jolt of terror. Heard a zipper unzip. Felt deep, dark hatred, and the knowledge that there was at least one rapist in our midst.
Then I heard the sound of a key entering the lock on my steel door.
***
When the door began opening, I instinctively stood back. I knew, without a doubt, that this man had rape on his mind.
He stepped into the room, keys dangling from one hand, whistling. When he stopped, mere inches from me, I refrained from stepping backward again. He liked to cause fear and dread in his victims, and although I was feeling those things in spades, because I knew exactly what he wanted to do to me, I refused to let him see it.
“What do you want, hot stuff?” I asked him. I pulled my top over my head and let it drop to the floor. I lifted my chin and parted my lips, watching him with half-closed lids. “I want you to give it to me like you mean it.”
He stepped back and stared at me, his hand suddenly gripping his keys tightly in a fist. Doubt had seeped into his eyes and he looked at me as if I were a dangerous maniac.
I unzipped my jeans and wiggled provocatively until they fell to the floor, and then stepped out of them. “Think you can handle that?”
He took another step back. “Get your clothes on. What do you think this is? A porn studio? Have a little self-respect, for God’s sake.”
I stepped forward and pouted. “Please? Pretty please? I want it so badly, baby.”
He gave me a look like I’d just climbed out of a pile of dog shit and had asked him for a hug. “I said, get your clothes on.”
Shaking his head, he turned back to the door and left, slamming it behind him.
I let out a deep breath and began pulling my jeans back on, trying not to let my hands tremble too much in case he was watching me through the window in the door, and thanked God for the ability I’d been cursing my whole life.
***
The next person to walk through the door was soft spoken, but dangerous. I sensed his intelligence, and I understood that if I attempted to pull a secret from him there would be consequences. Nasty consequences.
He sat in front of me on a brushed chrome chair that had been sitting next to the bed. He crossed his legs, a movement that I found both elegant and slightly narcissistic, which spoke of affluence—or the wish for affluence. This was a man who was very concerned with image. He was cold and didn’t care about me for any other reason than furthering his stature in life. What he w
anted most in this life was power and adoration, but adoration from only the right people.
From me he wanted respect and submission, and unlike the man in this room earlier, he wouldn’t be afraid of me for refusing to bend to his control, but furious. He would simply force me to bend. Even if it meant that he needed to break me.
All this I gleaned from his body language and from the cold indifference in his eyes. If I were of no use to him, he would have me killed.
“Lorelei,” he said, leaning back. He clasped his hands on his leg and tilted his head as he watched me, as if I were an interesting new pet he was watching in an aquarium. “You will know me as Lucian.”
“Yes,” I said, my voice sounding rather small. I almost winced at the quaver I heard in it.
“Your life has changed. Drastically. The nice thing is that you really won’t be making any decisions regarding your life from here on out. The bad part is that you won’t be making any decisions regarding your life here on out.” His lips turned up in a slight sneer. He thought he was pretty clever. Clearly, in order to pull all this off, he was.
He leaned forward, staring into my eyes. “Listen to me. Carefully. I feel nothing for you. I don’t like or dislike you. I don’t particularly want to bed you, though you’re a pretty girl and if you offer yourself to me, I might accept. However, giving yourself to me for my use will not net you any power here. I’m not easily manipulated. I don’t want to kill you. But I will kill you if you stand in the way of what I want. Do you understand me?”
I nodded once. “Yes.”
“I don’t care what you want. I’ll make you as comfortable as I can while you’re here, if you do as I wish.”
I nodded, staying silent. I swallowed down tears over the giant lump in my throat. I hated that I felt like a scared little girl, but I was.
“Don’t waste your breath pleading and begging for me to let you go. If you’re very obedient and cause me no trouble, I won’t kill you.”
I watched his eyes but stayed silent.
